Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies (DICE) was launched as a two-year pilot programme in March 2018, extended beyond this phase, owing to the success of the pilot. The programme aims to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development by supporting creative social enterprises (CSEs) and by strengthening the ecosystem in which they operate, prioritising key areas around gender, disability, marginalised communities and youth unemployment. DICE is currently being delivered in Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt and UK.

DICE is delivering initiatives that support individuals, enterprises, institutions and policymakers; by conducting research and gathering evidence; and by working across borders, sectors, silos, networks, and generations.

Individual

DICE Fellowship

The DICE Fellowship offered training, mentoring and networking support to young entrepreneurs, including women enterprise leaders, within the social and creative domains in order to help them sustain and grow their businesses leading to increased impact. The programme was run in 11 cities of Pakistan; Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Swat, Quetta, Gilgit, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, and Multan in two phases and successfully trained 600 young social and creative enterprise leaders (referred to as fellows).

As a continuation of the programme and to ensure continued support to the community of fellows after Covid-19 hit the world, DICE Portal was launched to provide support online. The aim of the portal is to bring the fellows together in a combined space where they can interact, find collaborating opportunities and learn from each other. Through this portal we have connected the 600 social and creative entrepreneurs we trained face-to-face during the fellowship, who now have access to exclusive learning resources, webinar recordings as well as access to a platform to have discussions.

Fellows can log in to the portal here

Upcoming: DICE Digital Fellowship

DICE is about to launch a new programme – DICE Digital Fellowship, which aims to work with promising women entrepreneurs around Pakistan who are ambitious about scaling their businesses. The programme will work on capacity building and training of 150 women entrepreneurs, enabling them to become better business leaders leading to sustainability and scalability of their enterprises. This programme will be run digitally via the DICE portal, helping us reach these entrepreneurs amidst the pandemic. More information on the programme to follow soon.

Institutional

DICE Fund

Under the institutional strand, DICE Fund of £2 million was awarded to intermediary organisations in DICE countries, including Pakistan. These grants were jointly awarded to partnerships comprising a UK-based organisation and a partner in another DICE country. The partners drew on the grants to co-design and co-deliver interventions that support the development of creative and social enterprises that specifically aim to:

  • empower women and girls; 
  • foster youth employment; and/or
  • promote the inclusion and economic empowerment of disabled people or other marginalised groups

In Pakistan, these grants were awarded to Six organisations, who collaborated with organisations in the UK to deliver projects in Pakistan. These organisations are:

To find out more about their projects, click here

To find out more about projects in other DICE countries, click here

Policy

Under the DICE Policy component, we work with a range of local and UK partners to explore impact of the sector on the economy, disseminate analysis, provide training, host policy dialogues and offer guidance to support policy makers and other stakeholders in formulating and implementing policies and strategies that foster social enterprise and create enabling environments for social impact investment.

British Council, together with SDPI, UNESCAP and Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms launched a social enterprise issues paper and have held round table discussions to discuss the recommendations of this issues paper.  We have successfully held similar discussions with relevant public and private bodies like FBR, SECP and State Bank of Pakistan.

Young Storymakers

The DICE Young Storymakers are a group of 14 young journalists, between the age of 18-25, passionate about showcasing innovative and impactful stories from their countries. They were selected after reviewing more than 200 applications of journalists, videographers, writers, radio journalists and photojournalists from all DICE countries. They were then invited to London in May 2019 for face-to-face training and mentorship with senior journalists, filmmakers and British Council’s partner Pioneers Post.

They provide invaluable reporting capacity and locally informed perspectives on the creative social enterprises and intermediaries that DICE is supporting and the complex, interconnected issues that DICE is exploring. 

To find out more about these 14 creative young journalists, click here

To explore and read their content, click here

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